Monster of the Week vs R'lyehwatch
Compare Monster of the Week and R'lyehwatch side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Monster of the Week | R'lyehwatch | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Horror, Modern | Horror, Modern |
| Play Style | Narrative, Beginner-Friendly, Investigation, Playbook-Driven, Fiction-First, Character-Driven, Theater of the Mind | Rules-Light, Comedy, One-Shot Friendly, Fast Sessions, Player-Only Rolls, Weird |
| Core Mechanic | Roll 2d6 + stat. 10+ full success, 7–9 success with a cost, 6 or less the Keeper makes a move. Playbook moves trigger from fictional actions. Luck points turn failures into successes but never come back. | Players roll a pool of 1–3 d6s against a target difficulty (4 for easy, 5 for average, 6 for hard). Every challenge starts with 1 die — add a second if the challenge matches the character's stat (Agile, Brawny, or Crafty), and a third if their role applies (The Veteran, Rookie, Medic, Gizmo, Detective, or Weirdo). Success means at least one die meets or beats the difficulty. Players spend luck tokens to invoke a perk and lower the difficulty by 1, and recover luck by letting their quirk cause a problem (raising the difficulty by 1). Grit tokens absorb failure consequences; a character who runs out of grit is removed from the scene. The referee never rolls dice during a challenge — they choose the stat and difficulty, then narrate the outcome. Extended challenges (chases, fights, infiltration) deplete a shared pool of effort tokens, one per success. |
| Dice | 2d6 | d6 dice pool |
| Complexity | Low | Very Low |
| Accessibility | High | High |
| Runnability | High | Medium |
| License | Generic Games Third Party License | Proprietary; third-party license and SRD permit derivative works |
| Cost | $$ | $ |
| Publisher | Evil Hat Productions | Hedgemaze Press / Third Chair Games |
| Year | 2023 | 2023 |
| Best For | Groups who want episodic monster-hunting adventures inspired by Buffy, Supernatural, and The X-Files — investigating mysteries, confronting creatures, and dealing with hunter drama. | Groups who want a quick, comedic cosmic-horror RPG that pairs Baywatch-style melodrama with the Cthulhu Mythos. Tuned for pickup play and 2-4 hour sessions, with three tonal modes (Casual, Standard, Horror) that retune lethality without changing the core rules. |
| Highlights | Very easy to learn, mystery countdown gives the Keeper a clear prep framework, playbooks map directly to genre archetypes | Three difficulty targets and a 1–3 d6 dice pool make up the entire resolution system. Three tonal modes (Casual, Standard, Horror) adjust grit recovery rate, retuning the same rules from sitcom-style play to deadly survival horror without changing any mechanics. All heroes share a universal Slow Motion quirk — narrating a slow-motion moment recovers a luck token but raises the current challenge's difficulty. Adventure generator combines random Objective, Location, and Complication tables for pickup scenarios; also includes an Elder Gods & Cults table, a Monster Maker, and a mapped Sunset Hills setting. |
| Considerations | No pre-written mysteries in the core book, limited mechanical depth for long campaigns, custom move design requires GM experience, monster creation guidelines are loose | Mechanically minimal — no advancement track beyond optional luck and grit cap increases, no gear lists, no tactical combat structure. Pacing assumes 2–4 hour sessions rather than multi-arc campaigns. Setting is anchored to Sunset Hills, California; running the game elsewhere requires reskinning the included cult, NPC, and location tables. Three difficulty values and a maximum 3-die pool give coarse resolution — granular skill differentiation is not the design. |